A Killing in Comics (17 page)

Maggie’s drink, in a collins glass, was a Horse’s Neck—ginger ale and whiskey, with a spiral of lemon peel and a few ice cubes. That was all she drank—years ago somebody at a party had handed her one, saying, “A peel for a peeler,” and she hated the remark but loved the drink.

Krane was having a martini, probably thinking it went well with his man-about-town attire. At least tonight he was sparing us his cigarette-holder routine.

I had a hunch Krane was on at least his second martini, because he had a loose-limbed manner, waving and smiling too wide upon seeing me. Maggie, I would wager, was on her first Horse’s Neck. She was smiling just a little and her sideways look at her guest indicated her and my purposes would best be served by lubricating him thoroughly.

“We already ordered,” Maggie said, smiling at me but with half-lidded eyes that further endorsed Krane’s pickled condition. “We’re having the strip steak.”

“Fine,” I said, sitting next to Maggie and across from Krane. We all had plenty of arm room at the big round table.

“Best strip steak in town,” Krane said, “for the best strip artist in America, courtesy of the best stripteaser in the world.”

“Why thank you, Rod,” she said, voice warm, eyes icy, “you’re much too kind.”

A barmaid, in white shirt, black tie and tuxedo pants, entered with a tray bearing a fresh martini for Krane and my first Coke on ice. She was a blonde pushing thirty (gently), one of the numerous between-gigs dancers who worked the Strip Joint.

After she replaced his empty cocktail glass with a filled one, he leered up at her and said, “Nicely done!”

She wasn’t good enough an actress for her smile and “Thank you” to play, but Krane didn’t seem to notice, witty bon vivant that he was.

He sipped his martini and said to me, “Saw you at the service this afternoon, Jackie.”

Nobody calls me Jackie. I despise being called Jackie.

“Yeah. Quite a crowd.”

“You know what they say—give the people what they want, and they’ll turn out.”

I actually smiled at that—like they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day—but Maggie said, “You shouldn’t be disrespectful, Rod. Donny was a big part of your life. Gave you your big break.”

“Come on, Maggie,” he said with a leer, teeth startlingly white in that tan face. “Don’t kid a kidder.”

He didn’t notice her tiny, tiny wince; but I did.

Krane sipped his martini and continued: “I mean,
you
didn’t bother to show. You sent your lackey Jackie here in your place.”

I decided not to hit him for that; would have spoiled the mood.

As for Maggie, she shrugged a little; her faint smile would have appeared amused to anybody but me, who read it as contemptuous. “Somebody had to run the syndicate.”

“Come on, Mag—you didn’t like Donny any better than I did, than
any
of us did.”

Another modest shrug. “Actually, I didn’t know Donny all that well. The major was close to him. And Jack knew him, growing up. But I’ve done most of my business dealings with Louie Cohn.”

He pointed a gun-like finger at her and winked. “Smart girl. Proof positive that just ’cause a doll has a fine frame on her doesn’t mean she don’t have what it takes, upstairs, in the brains department.”

God, I hated this guy. Donny was no great shakes as a human being, but talk about worthy murder victims . . . .

Maggie was saying, “You prefer dealing with Louie, then?”

His narrow eyes widened. “God, yes! Donny had a wild streak, and he could cop an attitude and just not let it
go
—if he decided you were trying to screw him over, there was no room for negotiation. No room for reasonable discourse.”

“Whereas,” Maggie said, “Louie is more conservative. Takes a longer, wiser view.”

“Bingo.”

Salads came, crisp lettuce with chopped carrot and celery and a tangy vinegar and oil Italian, the house dressing.

As we ate, Krane bragged about Hollywood interest in a second
Batwing
serial, and mentioned half a dozen pending licensing deals for toys, Halloween costumes and candy tie-ins. For all his bluster, and for as well as the
Batwing
book sold, Krane and his feature had never managed the licensing muscle of Spiegel and Shulman’s creation. No radio show, for example, and the TV series talk was strictly
Wonder Guy
.

When the steaks came, all medium rare with baked potato on a side plate, the talk continued, Krane doing most of it. This was aided by a fourth martini arriving midway through the meal. I mostly ate, being fairly starved and not wanting to waste jaw action on talk. And I was pleased to see Maggie eating more than just a salad, though her potato was jaybird naked of butter or sour cream, and she ate only a third or so of the meat, which was at least as criminal as the murder of Donny Harrison.

Krane’s bragging had to do with his, and our, knowledge that his five-year contract with Starr for the
Batwing
comic strip would come up next year. We were also aware that his ten-year contract with Americana would be due for renewal next year, as well—about six months after Spiegel and Shulman’s. Krane knew the comic-strip version of
Batwing
was doing only fair and wanted to keep us impressed with the property—make us perceive it as a going, growing concern and not a fad whose moment had passed.

“There’s a rumor,” Maggie said, “that you and the
Wonder
boys are throwing in together, to hit Americana up for a negotiation simultaneously. Form a united front.”

This was news to me; but Maggie had her ways.

“It’s been discussed,” Krane said, pushing his plate away. He’d close to cleaned it, leaving nothing but a shred of baked potato skin as evidence of the meal. He was one of those live-wire skinny guys who could eat a horse and still weigh in like a jockey.

“Strength in numbers,” Maggie said.

“Yeah.” Krane flipped a hand. “And I’ve been thinking of going that route. Some pretty nice leverage, there. Americana would hardly like to lose its two biggest properties at once.”

I asked, “How could Americana lose rights they already own?”

Krane’s grin was like a joker’s in a deck of cards. “We could challenge those rights. The boys have a case to make, thanks to Sy Mortimer’s foul-up with
Wonder Boy
. And I have a trick up my
Batwing
as well.”

Maggie smiled warmly at him, but I saw the ice crystalize in her eyes; she made herself reach out and touch Krane’s sleeve. “What trick is that, Rod? We’re all friends here.”

“Right. Aren’t you an Americana shareholder?”

“Just a few shares the major left me. My biggest concern is that the Starr Syndicate is still able to syndicate
Batwing
and
Wonder Guy
.”

I noticed she gave Krane top billing, which he didn’t deserve. Maggie knew what she was doing.

She was saying, “If that means Starr dealing with Americana, so be it; but if
you
wind up with the rights to
Batwing
, well . . . it would only simplify the syndication contract.”

This was BS of a rarefied order, and I don’t know if Krane would have bought it, had not his fourth martini been deader than Donny.

“I have no intention of leaving Americana,” Krane said, “as long as they treat me with the respect I deserve.”

Anything short of pushing him down an elevator shaft would qualify by that standard.

“And the trick up your wing,” Maggie said, and smiled wickedly, and sipped her Horse’s Neck, “makes that possible? Come on, Rod—spill.”

The joker’s grin again. “Okay. Good thing you’re sitting down . . . . My entire contract with Americana is invalid. According to my old man.”

Hiram Cohen (Krane’s father) was an attorney who represented many garment factories, including one of the city’s largest, which happened to be run by Hiram’s brother.

“I hope
our
contract isn’t invalid,” Maggie said lightly.

“Probably not. You see, I wasn’t of legal age when I signed with Donny—only twenty. That means, anytime I care to walk into Louis Cohn’s office, it’s a whole new ball game for
Batwing
.”

Meaning a major-league jam for Americana—
both
its top properties facing possible reversion to the creators, in Spiegel and Shulman’s case thanks to the
Wonder Boy
fubar, and in Krane’s a contract voided because the cartoonist had been a minor at signing.

“You have the birth certificate to prove it?” Maggie asked.

“No. My father was an immigrant, and you know how these old Jews were about such documents—papers like that tended to get lost in the shuffle. But my father and mother will testify that I was born in 1915.”

No records to subpoena, then.

I said, “But your father negotiated the first contract—did he build this in on purpose?”

“Don’t be insulting,” Krane said, but he was grinning again. “My father was a simple immigrant. His math skills were deficient.”

Krane’s “simple immigrant” father had studied law books at home and taken (and passed) the bar, becoming the top garment-center attorney in town.

Maggie asked, “Had you told Donny Harrison about your invalid contract yet?”

“Hell no, Mag! My father and I were in full agreement about that.”

I asked, “About what?”

“About going to
Louie Cohn
with this,” Krane said, “and not Donny. God knows how that hotheaded son of a bitch Harrison would’ve reacted. Louie, now
he’s
a businessman.”

Maggie flicked a look at me just as I was flicking one her way: the well-lubricated Krane had just traded us one murder motive for four martinis.

And maybe Krane
had
told Donny about this minor ploy, and gotten such a bad reaction that removing the publisher, to make way for the more “reasonable” Louie Cohn, had been a tempting option.

The blonde barmaid brought me a second Coke, Krane a fifth martini, while Maggie continued to nurse her first and only Horse’s Neck.

Maggie asked, in a manner so casual it could hardly have been more calculated, “What’s this I hear about Will Hander and Donny?”

No grin. In fact Krane frowned and his deep dimples went AWOL, though the laugh crinkles around the dark eyes tightened and his forehead creased over the black brush strokes of eyebrow. “What
about
Will?”

Will Hander was widely believed to have been the co-creator of
Batwing
, but had got none of the credit and only freelancer money for the writing.

“I’ve heard,” Maggie said, “that for several years he’s been pressuring Donny to give him his rightful share of the strip.”

“What
he
considers his ‘rightful share’!” Krane snapped. “Listen, Maggie, we’ve talked about this before.
Batwing
was mine—my concept, my character. Will was just the writer I went to, to flesh out my script notions.”

“I don’t mean to step on any toes,” Maggie said with a smile so charming I damn near checked my back pocket for my wallet, “but scuttlebutt has it that Will created Sparrow, and lots of the villains, including Harlequin and Tuxedo.”

Sparrow was Batwing’s kid sidekick.

Krane’s nostrils flared, and his eyes slitted. “Believing scuttlebutt is beneath you, Maggie. I’m like any other major cartoonist, except that because I have both comic strips
and
comic books to provide material for, I need more help than most. I value Will—he’s the best
Batwing
writer. I’m second to nobody in my admiration for his work. But he’s just a writer.”

Right—the way the half dozen
Batwing
cartoonists salted here and there around the New York environs were just artists. Where big-time comics creators like Milton Caniff or Sam Fizer or Hal Rapp openly admitted having studios wherein they worked with their assistants—even posing for group pictures and making their staff’s names public—Krane kept his anonymous “helpers” out of touch with each other, and scattered.

Even the laziest, least talented cartoonists usually did
some
work on their own strips—doing rough layouts, say, or inking the faces. But I suspected the last pen Krane touched was to write a check, and his last brush had been stuck in his mouth, working to make those teeth so goddamn white.

“I guess what I’m getting to,” Maggie said, “is whether you think Will might’ve had a motive for killing Donny.”

“Oh.”

Krane’s face relaxed, now that the subject had gone from something serious—whether he was a money and credit hog—to something trivial—like his chief writer having killed their publisher.

“Well,” he said, “sure. Maybe. Donny paid Will directly, you know, at my request . . . and paid him well. I don’t think Donny would’ve took kindly to being squeezed like that.”

Or taken kindly to Krane’s lawyer poppa putting the squeeze on him, either.

Krane hadn’t touched the fifth martini yet. Maybe the gin was catching up to him. He looked at Maggie, carefully, doing his best to bring her in focus; then he looked at me the same way. He was weaving just a little.

Finally he said, “What’s this about, fellas and girls? I thought this was a business supper. See how
Batwing
’s doing. Kind of lay the groundwork for our new contract. And I wasn’t a minor when I signed with Starr, so you should have nothin’ to worry about there.”

“Good,” Maggie said.

“You’re asking me about . . . you’re talking about . . . this is about . . . the
murder
. Right? Donny’s murder?”

“Yes,” she said.

And I nodded.

“Well,” he said. “
Why?
That’s . . . police business. I already talked to that Captain Chandler. He seemed like the genuine article. He’ll get to the bottom of it, right?”

Maggie said, “Eventually.”

I said, “I’m checking into the circumstances, Rod. To protect our interests. Some of our most valued talents are on the suspect list.”